That Uh-Oh Feeling

My daughter posted the following on her blog today. I would like to comment further at the end of it.

" My husband went to play basketball tonight, so I decided to go to the mall to window shop. I was browsing in the women's clothing section at Sears, and kept noticing an older man (in his sixties?) out of the corner of my eye every time I walked down an aisle. I walked over to look at some dresses, and when I glanced up I saw him coming towards me. He said "excuse me, but your hair is just so beautiful." I said "thank you" and turned to walk away. People have commented about my hair before, especially Chinese people who seem to be fascinated with it because it's blonde.

Then he pulled out a Guidepost magazine and asked me if I'd like to have a copy to read and handed it to me. I thought maybe he was some sort of missionary. He went on about how Guidepost had been around for 60 years, and how he used to read his mother's copy back in 1945. He said whenever he came to the mall alone, which was often, that he liked to sit in the food court and read Guidepost and "would just have the best time." I told him thanks, that I would read it. Now I thought he was just a lonely old man who wanted someone to talk to.

But then he started talking about my hair again. He said "I just love your hair. It's such a pretty color and it's so straight. I just love it when women part their hair on the side like that." This creeped me out, and I started backing away from him.

He asked me what my first name was and said "I could just fall in love with you." This completely freaked me out. I said "I'm sure my husband wouldn't like that." His expression changed, and he asked "is he here?" I said "YES". Then he said "it was so nice to meet you" and walked away! I watched him leave the store, then booked it out the door to my car with keys and pepper spray in hand.

Maybe I'm paranoid and he was just a lonely old man who thought I would be nice to talk to. Or maybe my intuition was right and he was the next BTK Killer! Either way, it really rattled me, and I don't think I'll ever go to the mall by myself again at night."

COMMENT: As her mom, of course this freaked me out. As a woman, I realize that sometimes we are all too trusting. I mean, if someone who looked like Ted Bundy came up and said he had car trouble and asked if we would jump off his car, and we had jumper cables, would we follow him back to the parking lot? If a guy walked up to our car and knocked on the window in a parking lot, would we roll the window down? If someone knocked on our front door and we didn't know him, would we open it to see who he was? I'm not sure I could answer no to any of these questions, which proves I am probably way too trusting. However, do we go to the other extreme and become so paranoid that we are afraid to talk to anyone? I believe the key lies in something I saw on the Montel show this morning. He stated that every woman seems to have this "inside voice", call it intuition, sixth sense, whatever, that gives her little warning bells and that 99% of the time, its RIGHT. But as women, we ignore that voice with reasons why its probably ok, or we're probably overreacting, or whatever. LADIES, listen to that voice. God gave it to you for a reason. If something doesn't feel quite right, then GET OUT OF THERE. Don't worry about what anyone thinks, don't worry about whether you're crying wolf. It's better to be safe than sorry. I'm glad my daughter kept her head, and I'm glad he ran away. But we can all take a lesson from her. Listen to that UH OH inside.